The 2022 programme MANIFESTO brought exhibitions, performances, public talks, publications and digital projects to Tirana through an explicit critique of political power and its relationship with contemporary art.
Developed by DebatikCenter of Contemporary Art with ZETA Contemporary Art Center, the project ran from July to September and addressed corruption, surveillance, neocolonialism and the use of culture to legitimise elites.
Artworks built from contested political remains
The programme opened with a performative press conference and The House That Woodrow Built, an exhibition by La Société Spectrale, formed by Armando Lulaj, Jonida Gashi and Pleurad Xhafa.
The exhibition assembled materials carrying unresolved political histories. These included roof beams connected with the disputed “Yellow House,” objects recovered after the demolition of Albania’s National Theatre and furniture from the United States Embassy in Tirana.
Placed together, the objects were treated as archival remains that could not be absorbed easily into an official national narrative.
Talks, surveillance and public tools
Public presentations examined vandalism as a curatorial strategy, economic extraction and the role of hoaxes in Albanian art history. A CryptoParty workshop introduced methods for protecting personal information from government and corporate surveillance.
Online projects mapped relationships between the international art world and Albanian politics, documented surveillance in public space and explored media narratives of war.
The programme also launched a publishing series intended to make current debates in art and criticism available to Albanian readers.
MANIFESTO rejected the idea that contemporary art exists outside political systems. Its language was deliberately confrontational, presenting the exhibition space as a place for resistance rather than neutrality.
The project’s strongest contribution was its use of several formats at once. Objects, performances, maps, talks, software and publications became parts of a single attempt to expose how cultural legitimacy, information and political authority circulate together.